UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT (CSTD)

Contribution to the CSTD ten-year review of the implementation of WSIS outcomes

Submitted by eNOTUS

DISCLAIMER:The views presented hereare the contributors’ and do not necessarily reflect the viewsand position of the United Nations or the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

WSIS Questionnaire

The relationship between the Information Society, sustainable development and the Post 2015 Development Agenda

Many initiatives resulting from WSIS have been beneficial for social progress in the development sense and for stimulating economic growth through the best use of ICT’s.

People centered communications are now in 2014 the norm, however when Ahmed Laouyane of the ITU suggested the conducting of a Global Summit on this subject in 1999 this was not the case.

In our particular circumstance with other stakeholders including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and later BASIS as well as UNICT we predicted that trust in a digital society would become a major issue in an environment where trust between citizens and government and business would deteriorate despite the advantages of ICT’s. This has proven to be correct and WSIS was the starting point of our research.

With partners we have collaborated on various studies for improving trust in the business environment and between business and government. This now includes seeking the active interest of leading forums such as the B20 and BIAC to inform and make this known to the G20, as trust is vital aspect of development that impacts growth and jobs. A few observations and our current intentions are related below.

Identifying the need for a Global Trust Registry

Trust has become one of the most important business issues and it is vital that business plays a leading role in dealing with the challenges that plummeting levels of trust are causing in all sectors of society. The ICC and BIAC are among the best-positioned international organizations representing global business that can lead the way in reviving and promoting TRUST. In identifying this need and responding to ICC interests and requests eNotus and the Registry founding team have consulted widely and recognized the issue of trust is critical globally.

Due to the GFC in 2008 much emphasis has been placed on avoiding future financial shocks and the resulting Great Recession. This led our team to investigate the Global Ratings System and proposals for new regime being presented to the G20 finance ministers and Central bankers. The establishment of a Global Trust Registry compliments such initiatives and demonstrates the interdependency of Trust with other factors that shape the information environment of finance and trade and development.

Although many factors make up this environment and generate the information that affects every aspect of competition for business including stock prices and trading volumes and a range of issues related to capital and the costs of capital Trust remains the underlying interdependency that makes this all work for enterprises in both developing or developed economies. Therefore the Trust Registry is about the promotion of trust, the adoption of the competences required to function in an ever-faster world of digital decisions and transactions. Trust needs to become an asset of the business enterprise ranked with

IP,

Goodwill

Human Resources

and it needs to be understood as a cultural construct.

The importance of trust in business has been long understood but there are new dynamics between Government and the private sector that go far beyond the impacts of the past. The digital landscape is now so ubiquitous and the problems so vast that discussions at the 2014 WEF at Davos advocated that business must take the lead role in restoring trust. As early as 2007 following WSIS the Registry founders began investigating these and related issues.

About eNotus

The eNotus vision is a single information standard by which all nations can view economic opportunities, examine the minutiae of distant markets and adopt world-best practice for international and domestic trade.

Our vision is to enable investment to more easily target efficient production and cost effective service providers in developing economies, increase investment flows into these economies, help their private sectors to raise growth rates, and to connect their labor markets to global opportunities.